Stray wallaby has small Dutch town hopping

Dutch police are looking for the owner of a stray wallaby that made an unexpected appearance in a small town over the weekend.

Trains near Staphorst in the northern Netherlands were delayed for at least half an hour Saturday afternoon after a driver spotted the wallaby hopping along the tracks before disappearing into the town, Dutch media reports said Monday.

The animal, by then christened “Skippy” by Dutch Rail’s Twitter feed, was spotted by locals who phoned resident Patrick Dunnik to help trap it.

Dunnik devised a lasso from rope and managed to snag the animal round a leg before fi nally bringing it down.

“It took both me and my two friends to hold down the wallaby because it was incredibly strong,” he said.

Police arrived a short while later to take Skippy to an animal shelter.

“We’re keeping it a few days at the shelter so it can de- stress,” regional animal ambulance coordinator Edwin Budel said.